Women On Boards: Is Legislation The Way To Go?

California thinks so. In late September, the Governor signed a law mandating that publicly traded companies based in the state will need at least one woman on the board by the end of 2019 and three women by 2021. Despite expected legal challenges, it’s the law of their land for now.

Closer to home, the number of women on large corporate boards has increased, but slowly. So slowly in fact, the Chicago Network, which for 16 years commissioned an annual census of local board diversity, discontinued it after 2014 because the gains were so narrow. At 25 of Illinois’s largest publicly tradedcompanies, 23 percent of board seats are held by women this year, compared with less than 18 percent at those same companies five years ago. Could a new state law make a difference?

Many laws designed to benefit women have by and large been successful. The Equal Pay Act has not directly changed the pay gap, although it could be worse without the legislation. Efforts are being made to strengthen the law with the proposed Paycheck Fairness Act. Several new state laws are promising. In California, for example, the minimum wage will increase 50 cents an hour starting Jan. 1 to $11 an hour. Wage increases are also happening in Florida, Hawaii, New York City, and Illinois.

Is an Illinois law mandating women on public boards worth a try? Couldn’t such a law be a major step forward, not just for women, but for businesses in our economy? After all, women make up half of our population. If corporate boards won’t acknowledge us, maybe legislation will fast track this next visual demonstration of equality.